How to set each field as required for formset_factory in Django (how to validate blank forms in formsets) - django-forms

Question

I have the form in my forms.py:
class NameForm(forms.Form):
your_name = forms.CharField(label='Your name', max_length=100)
age = forms.CharField(label='Age', max_length=100)
sex = forms.CharField(label='Sex', max_length=100)
I created the formset_factory
NameFormSet = formset_factory(NameForm, extra=0)
In my views.py for the get context_data, I have:
...
def get_context_data(self, **kwargs):
context = super(APView, self).get_context_data(**kwargs)
if self.request.POST:
context['formset'] = NameFormSet()
else:
recommended = returnWebAttackResults(self.kwargs['webAttack'])
if recommended is None:
context['recommendedAP'] = False
else:
context['formset'] = NameFormSet(initial=recommended[0])
return context
....
In my template file, I have:
<form class="row" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
{% csrf_token %}
{{ formset.management_form }}
{{ formset.non_form_errors }}
{% for forma in formset.forms %}
{{ forma }}
{% endfor %}
<input class="btn bg-success" type="submit" value="Update" />
</form>
My problem is that I don't get "This field is required" when I click the "Update" button. I tried setting the use_required_attribute to True, but it did not work.
Scenario:
The returnWebAttackResults function gets the initial data for the forms in the formset. So, if I have three forms, if one of the fields is blank (no user input) in any of the forms, then when I click the Update button, each field that is blank should be highlighted with the "This field is required". I can do this when I just render a regular form, but when I am using formsets, it does not work.
Is there a way to validate the forms in the formset before the request in sent?

Answer 1

I hit the same problem and found this in the documentation
https://docs.djangoproject.com/en/3.0/ref/forms/fields/#core-field-arguments
Widgets of required form fields have the required HTML attribute. Set the Form.use_required_attribute attribute to False to disable it. The required attribute isn’t included on forms of formsets because the browser validation may not be correct when adding and deleting formsets.
If you have an empty row (for adding an extra record) then you can't save the form until the empty row is filled in. So, if you want to say update one existing row without adding an extra row then you have a problem, you can't do it. The problem really comes from the fact that a formset is really in html terms just a single form. A workaround for that problem might be to use javascript to add rows to the formset only as needed, as in this example:
https://whoisnicoleharris.com/2015/01/06/implementing-django-formsets.html
There is probably furthermore a javascript solution to validate the form fields before you send the request, I think this may be such a solution but I haven't tried it:
https://jqueryvalidation.org/required-method/
It would make sense that a completely empty row should not be validated for required fields but just ignored altogether.
UPDATE: I got a simple solution working from the example in the above link. My template looks like this (note that no empty row is shown initially thanks to the if statement):
{% extends "base_generic.html" %}
{% load static %}
{% block content %}
<h1>Experiment Detail</h1>
<form name="test_form" method="post">
{% csrf_token %}
{{ formset.management_form }}
{% for form in formset %}
{% if form.name.value %}
<div class="link-formset">
{{ form.name }}
</div>
{% endif %}
{% endfor %}
<input type="submit" value="Save" class="button"/>
</form>
<!-- Include formset plugin - including jQuery dependency -->
<!-- <script src="{% static 'path_to/jquery-3.4.1.js' %}"></script> -->
<script src="//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.3/jquery.min.js"></script>
<script src="{% static 'js/jquery_formset.js' %}"></script>
<script>
$('.link-formset').formset({
addText: 'Add',
deleteText: 'Delete'
});
</script>
{% endblock %}
In my view I have this for loop to set the use_required_attribute:
for form in formSet:
form.use_required_attribute = True
The solution seems to work OK, when I click the Add button an empty row appears and the empty 'name' field has the expected red box round the empty field and when I try to click Save I get the message 'Please fill out this field.'

Answer 2

the solution is, add BaseFormSet in froms.py, like this:
forms.py
from django.form import BaseFormSet
class NameForm(forms.Form):
your_name = forms.CharField(label='Your name', max_length=100, blank=False)
age = forms.CharField(label='Age', max_length=100, blank=False)
sex = forms.CharField(label='Sex', max_length=100, blank=False)
class RequiredFormSet(BaseFormSet):
def __init__(self, *args, **kwargs):
super(RequiredFormSet, self).__init__(*args, **kwargs)
for form in self.forms:
form.empty_permitted = False
form.use_required_attribute = True
NameFormSet = formset_factory(NameForm, formset=RequiredFormSet)